"Ever feel at all uncomfortable about--that--Chinaman, Morris?" I said
one day, after we had been coasting along the shore southward for about
a week. I had not encountered that marine sentry alone since the
terrible scene in the place where the prisoners were confined; and now,
as soon as I saw him, the whole affair came back with all its shuddering
horrors, and I felt quite a morbid desire to talk to him about it.
"What, bayoneting him, sir?" said the man quietly. "Well, no, sir, it's
very odd, but I never have much. I was so excited when I see him with
his knife ashining by the light o' the corporal's lantern, that all the
bayonet practice come to me quite natural like, and, as you know, I give
point from the guard, and he jumped right on it, and I held him down
after as you would a savage kind of tiger thing, and felt quite pleased
like at having saved the first luff's life. After you'd gone all the
lads got talking about it, and I felt as proud as a peacock with ten
tails. And I got wondering, too, about what Mr Reardon would do, for
he said he would see me again. It was all very well then, but that
night when I turned in I felt quite sick, and I couldn't sleep a wink.
The more I turned about in my hammock, the hotter and worser I got.
There it all was before me, I could see myself holding that pirate chap
pinned down, and there was his eyes rolling and his teeth snapping as he
twisted about. Ugh! it was horrid, sir; and I felt as I was in for it,
and began to understand what one has read about chaps as commits murder
always being haunted like with thoughts of what they've done, and never
being happy no more. Then it got worse and worse, and I says to myself,
`If it was as bad as that for just doing your duty, and saving your
officer's life, what must it be when you kills a man out o' sheer
wickedness to get his money?'"
The man stopped then, and looked round to see if any one was within
hearing, but we were quite alone, and he went on quietly--
"You won't laugh at me, sir, will you?"
"Laugh?" I cried wonderingly. "It's too horrible to laugh about."
"Yes, sir; but I meant, feel ready to chaff about it, and tell the other
young gentlemen, and get thinking me soft."
"Of course not, Morris."
"No, sir, you ain't that sort. You've got a mother, too, ain't you?"
"Yes; but I shouldn't have liked her to see all we saw that day."
"No, sir, you wouldn't. I haven't got no mother now, sir, but I did
have one once."